I believe GameDeveloper had an article that was around this topic. I actually think it was one of descriptions of the 400 project (the 400 game design/development rules). Basically what they said, was don''t ever punish the player for something they didn''t do, instead reward them for something they did do.

For example, say your fighting a boss mob, and you didnt get the required item to kill him. However you were able to inflict enough damamge to him that he ran away, however, on his way out he had enough time to self destruct the building. So the game continues, and the player is still having fun. Now, imagine that they bring the required item to kill him. The building dosn''t get destroyed, and when he player searches the building more he finds the (INSERT COOL ITEM HERE) maybe an hour or two before it is initially presented to him. This allows him to have a 1-2 hour "jump" on the other enemies.

Theres a diffrence between risk and doing something stupid. Charging out into a room full of motion tracking machine guns is stupid, Going toe to tooth with a basiliks is risky.

I think part of the issue comes down to two mottos "Take a Chance" and "all ways be prepared". I think adding research into the game would add to its interest. If players had to use their heads and plan a strategy before going into a difficult battle they would be better for it. After all a foolish hero would simply charge head first into the hungry basiliks cave and be killed out right. But an intellegent adventure would do some research first. They would find out what a basiliks strengths and weakness where. They'd outfit themselves with useful equipment to take advanates of the those weakness and protect against its strengths. Lastly they would probly ask around with the locals as to whether there where any backways into the cave and in the end. They are still taking a chance by facing the basiliks but at least they prepared for what they are facing.

Is that really so bad?
The player finds out about the basiliks so they go through some old books or higher a scribe to do the reaserch for them. With that they discover that looking into a basiliks eyes means death. That a deadly venom courses through its fangs that brings death within a minute of being bitten. Thats it skin is hard as rock, but its underbelly is soft as leather. That it has keen sense of small, loves to eat goat and becomes lathergic in the cold.

With that the player know what to expect and can take precautions and prepare for the fight. From other adventuring they know that a phenoix tear can cure any posion and that mixture of pigs blood and sulphur creates a foul oder that obsecures all other oders for several hours. They know that a fridged air potion can be made by mixing winters root, spring water and titans breath.

They take the time to prepare those things and then all thats is left is to determine a way protect against the basiliks eyes and slay the beast.


Does the idea of preparing for battle turn you off of gaming? Or Would you simply prefer to just hack and slash at every enemy, and quaff the occasional healing potion until the monster dies?



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Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on December 18, 2003 12:01:01 PM]

Hmm...

I''m designing my damage system to be realistic (as realistic as I understand damages). This brings along a world of design problems, such as how to add surprise attacks on the player character. These would probably be pretty boring because in a realistic modern setting, a gunshot to the head would be lethal and if the player has no way of knowing if it will be there (hence "surprise attack" :-D) he will, as someone stated, be punished for something he didn''t do.

So we have two categories here:
(1) The player knows that a he will face an opponent whose attacks can kill him easily (NOTE: This is not the same as "an opponent who can kill him easily).
(2) The player will face an opponent whose attacks can kill him easily, but the player is unaware of it.

There are naturally other ways to categorize this, but I think this is a pretty logical way to look at it. I will also look at this from my RPG''s standpoint which is: Damage is realistic, and that means that the player is ALSO equipped with lethal attacks (in my case close combat/kung fu, pistols, rifles, knifes, what-have-you). While I''m at it, I might as well mention that my RPG features non-twitchy auto-pause-often real-time combat.

(1)The player knows.

If the player knows that the opposition is very dangerous, he knows (or will learn damn fast ) that he has to plan every move he makes. If he goes in "guns blazing", his character better be VERY good at using his gun(s). The player will have to learn to use the surroundings, and to take advantage of the fact that a surprise and/or silent attack is VERY much preferred to an attack where the enemies have time to come up with a tactic and/or tell their friends that "WE NEED HELP!!". In fact, if they can''t even scream for help (because of the headshots you just scored ), then all the better.

The player will also need to live with the fact that he may get a bullet through his head if he''s unlucky or a poor planner as well. However, to the defence of a realistic damage system vs. for example a usual HP system, luck plays a pretty big part in HP systems as well in my opinion.


(2) The player does not know.
This could for example if the player has helped the police with some kind of problem they had, and he gets contacted by some suspicious guy who tells him that the mafia boss wants to see him. The mafia boss then kills him as soon as the player is in his mansion.

First, what is very important to do is to try and remove any surprise attacks that is COMPLETELY unavoidable. This is true for any game type: You don''t want to fall down a trap door just so you have to reload and try the other way.
Or better yet, make some of these either avoidable (the character manages to grab the edge and pull himself up if he''s strong and agile enough, or maybe he sees the trap door before he steps on it if he''s perceptive enough.) or predictable. In the mafia example, the player would most likely understand that something fishy was going on, but decided to go to the meeting anyways. If he''s prepared, he would have some extra time to try and escape (perhaps by jumping out the window?).

If you really DO want to set up a trap for the player that he can''t see, remember that you don''t have to kill him! The mafia boss might just tie him up, put him in the basement, and torture him a bit. In this case, maybe the strong/agile character would break free from the torturer and kill him and steal the key, or if he was more of a smarty-talky character he might persuade the torturer, or simply hold out until he could convince a guard to release him, or ask his next-door cellmate if there''s a way to escape....

There are lots of ways to solve it, but it is very important that the player knows what he''s getting himself into.



Maybe noone will like a realistic damage system, but I sure have never seen one, and I think that it might add A LOT to the experience, so therefore that''s how I''m designing my game. I don''t want every other game to be that way, but someone has to at least try

------------------
"Kaka e gott" - Me
Current project: An RPG with tactical, real-time combat with a realistic damage system, and randomly generated world and dialogue.

I''m in complete agreement, Techno - I don''t believe the everyday gamer wants true risk in their games, period. The great majority want the ILLUSION of risk, but the reality is what they want is something challenging that won''t cost them much except time and effort.

I''m a big fan of permadeath; I fully believe that it can be implemented into a game system if the tools are in place to keep it from being an instantaneous, unavoidable consequence. I get annoyed at the cannon-fodder mentality of games today; there is very little skill, strategy and pre-planning involved beyond "get the l33t gear and become uber".

I would love to see a game come out where I had to actually learn things about an opponent/creature and prepare myself accordingly, with an option to flee if things go bad, instead of mindlessless throwing myself into harm''s way until I either get lucky or figure out the creature''s attack pattern and how many hits it''ll take to finish it off.

Unfortunately I don''t think the Great Majority is ready for that kind of game. They want instant gratification, all in the name of fun.

The first time I played counterstrike (about half hour or so) I got so badly addicted to it I could taste it. I also got utterly trashed - as you can imagine - death in counterstrike comes easily, swiftly and unexpectedly - and it hurts - because you are thrown out of a game you love - and because your team loses a member and this often means losing the current game.

I think it was the risk that got me addicted to counterstrike - massive doses of it.

______________________________________

Pax Solaris

[edited by - Diodor on December 18, 2003 1:56:08 PM]

I like risk. Im used to the really old games (nethack has been mentioned already) where when you died, you were dead. I''ve also watched lots of other people though, who like it that when they die, they reload the previous saved game. Infact, when they loose a bit of health in a fight, they reload the save game and try again.

"That was OK, I didnt get a single scratch, but I fired more rockets than I had to... waste of ammo... reload..."

There are games (most MMORPGs included) that I would never play, simply because there doesn''t appear to be any point, because you can''t die/loose/fail. You might as well program a robot to play for you.

One thing that does annoy me is doing the same thing twice because a failure on something else killed me. Battling through an entire level of an FPS in which you can only save between levels, only to fall down a pit at the end, is irritating. You have to do it all again, probably half an hour of it, just so that you can attempt the jump over the pit for the second time. (Dark forces, I''m looking at you...). In nethack, you never do the same thing twice - it is a different level 1 that you have to fight through after you die on level 2.

The common MUD approach was to loose 1 level worth of experience, which was painfully expensive, but survivable. Quite a good balance between ''I''m immortal - who cares?'' and ''Oh my god I''m gonna diiiiiieeeeeeee''.

Perma-death is attractive for its realism, but is rough on enjoyment.

Y''all can make fun of people who "want the illusion of risk," but in online roleplaying games where you spend literally years making, building, growing a character....to lose that character is unacceptable. EVEN if there are things to research about your opponent, EVEN if it makes things more realistic. In fact, the longer you play the more chances you have to run up against one of these perma-death situations. In my opinion anyway.

What people have said about balancing seems right. If you are going to have permadeath, it better have some great damn rewards.

I dont think its wimpy that people dont want to lose something they''ve worked hard for to something that cant be avoided over time.

Alfred Norris, VoodooFusion Studios
Team Lead - CONFLICT: Omega
www.conflictomega.com[\url]

Lets tie this in with my "are victory conditions manditory?" thread. What if the whole purpose of the game was to explore, adventure, and become as powerful as you can before your character dies or you decided to start over.

Also I wasn't talking about permadeath per say, it is just something that seemed to become a center of discussion. But that again begs the question of risk vs reward. People seem to have the idea that if there is even a little risk there should be great rewards. But why? What about bragging rights and personal pride. Are you telling me that you wouldn't have a sense of pride and acchomplishment if you manged to take down a basilik? you might even begin to wonder if you can defeat it eariler in the game next time. The rush and exciment at knowing how close to losing you've come? Its a desperate battle your character is hanging on by a thread all your instincts tell you to run and live to fight another day. Yet you fight on and with your last desperate swing you sever the feasome beasts head from its neck, and watch as its body falls to the floor.

But okay lets talk about alternatives to permant death:
1)Losing all equipment that the character is carrying.
2)Losing experince.
3)Losing a skill or ability.
4)Having to reload since the last save.
5)Losing the current character and being forced to choose a new one but keeping all your equipment, and achomplishments.
6)Reset back to starting state.
7)....




-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on December 18, 2003 6:05:47 PM]

Back in my MUD days, I played on one that had a death system that - to me, and those who played on it - was harsh but fair.

If you died, and you''d have to have gone up against something well beyond your skill level AND not bothered to try and /flee, you ended up as both a corpse and a ghost. Your body lay there while your disembodied spirit roamed, either to head back to a temple and /pray for a resurrection OR you came across a friendly, wandering priest who could ressurect your body.

If you did so at the temple it would cost you in coin, experience loss, random item loss and your body would reappear at the temple.

If you got a priest to do it on site you lost experience but retained whatever items remained on your corpse.

As a ghost you could communicate with others on the server through /say or /broadcast - you just couldn''t "physically" interact.

Your corpse was also open to be looted by anyone with the skill (thieves, rogues, etc.) They couldn''t take all your stuff, they had a choice to try and loot either coin or items, and then it was randomized. They wouldn''t be able to loot anything else off that same corpse afterwards.

After X amount of time your corpse would decay and you''d be forced back into the world with basic items.

There were also banks and vaults where your items could be stored - which was great for keeping extra coin, clothing, weapons and armor as precautions.

quote: in online roleplaying games where you spend literally years making, building, growing a character....to lose that character is unacceptable.

Which, again, is of course the prevailing opinion. I just happen not to agree with it, while understanding that until this opinion is changed gamers will never accept high risk to their characters. That seems to be unrealistic, and I recognize the irony of that statement considering we''re talking about virtual worlds here. In fact, the "reality" is that the more affluent and wealthy an individual becomes, the less they''d involve themselves in personal risk; they''d send others to do their dirty work. Hence the transition from soldier to lord of the manor.

Which, again, is why I feel harsh punishment for death - if not permadeath - CAN be done, if done carefully. In a warrior/fantasy scenario, things like inheritance/birthrights can help overcome the loss and make it less painful (your new character becomes a sibling or offspring of your old one). The new character starts off in an advanced state rather than a complete newb, inherits certain items, estates and coin from the old character, and a certain additional percentage of experience that could reflect the "avenging relative" angle.

If you give advanced characters the chance to make money and earn experience by having others do work for them and to hire NPCs to assist them, you can still enter higher risk areas but the balance is maintained because the player now has a higher level of help - and can bail if the going gets too tough, leaving his troops to cover his retreat.

Frankly, in the last scenario, if he''s stupid enough to stand his ground then he deserves his fate.

My two bytes anyway.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Do players want risk in games? Because it seems to me like they prefer to have games easy, where there is no danger to their characters.

I would say players want a challenge, which requires that there is risk or danger, but a lot of the enjoyment of gaming comes from overcoming the challenge. As EricTrickster said in his first post, it''s the illusion of risk that''s needed. The player won''t get as much enjoyment from succeeding if he doesn''t feel he''s "achieved" something. That sense of achievement doesn''t have to come from repeatedly failing the challenge though, which generally just annoys gamers (though there are always exceptions).

One example is the "catch up" feature in racing games, where if you''re ahead of the AI cars they speed up slightly have a better chance of catching you, and if you''re behind they slow down slightly. This does two things; firstly when winning you get the feeling you only just won because the others cars are close behind, and secondly when loosing you don''t feel it was such a huge failing because the cars aren''t as far in front.

Also I think more games now are mentioning auto-adjusting difficulty as one of their features. The game changes the difficulty on-the-fly according to how well or badly the player is doing. It''s the same principle as the racing game, you make winning and loosing less of a sure thing, which may make the player appreciate the win more and be less disheartened (and likely to stop playing) when loosing.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Also I wasn''t talking about permadeath per say, it is just something that seemed to become a center of discussion. But that again begs the question of risk vs reward. People seem to have the idea that if there is even a little risk there should be great rewards. But why? What about bragging rights and personal pride. Are you telling me that you wouldn''t have a sense of pride and acchomplishment if you manged to take down a basilik? you might even begin to wonder if you can defeat it eariler in the game next time. The rush and exciment at knowing how close to losing you''ve come? Its a desperate battle your character is hanging on by a thread all your instincts tell you to run and live to fight another day. Yet you fight on and with your last desperate swing you sever the feasome beasts head from its neck, and watch as its body falls to the floor.

At no point in this scenario does the player loose, but a close battle gives more gratification when won. A similar adjustment system could be in effect, such as enemies getting fewer succesful hits when the player''s health is less then 30%. Wizardry 8 had a system for keeping battles challenging where it would increase the health (and attack damage I think) of a type of enemy as the player''s party leveled up. So a rat encountered at level 1 would have 50 health, but a rat at level 5 would have 200 health. The downside of this system was that it was obvious what the game was doing, so it felt artificial.

I would say it''s not the player "knowing how close to losing you''ve come" but "believing how close" that matters. I''m not saying the player should never loose, such as when attacking the basilisk earlier on in another game. Neither the racing game or auto-difficulty prevent loosing, but they shift the likely outcome away from "absolute success/failure" to "just enough success/failure".

Fulby